


Any Lighter For It

by goodnicepeople



Series: Thicker Than Water [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, but since death occurs I'd rather 'overtag' than not, violence is not very graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 06:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9479441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnicepeople/pseuds/goodnicepeople
Summary: Taako does it without magic. It occurs to him in the moment, with his hand on the hilt of a small dagger. He thinks, Magnus would’ve, if this were him. So he does it without magic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I think you know what this is about, or can take a good guess if you've listened to episode 55.
> 
> I tried to tag appropriately, although the violence is not particularly graphic, and not much more than anything we've heard occur in the course of canon. Also, there is fake seduction where nothing physical occurs at all (or really anything outside of light banter). But I also want to give a head's up for that, in case that generally gives you pause.

He does it without magic. It occurs to him in the moment, with his hand on the hilt of a small dagger. He thinks, Magnus would’ve, if this were him. So he does it without magic.

Taako isn’t one for principles, but for some reason, this one sticks. Do it like Magnus would’ve. The thought is not premeditated. Nothing about Callen or this strange and serendipitous moment is, in retrospect. Spoken of and packed away. Not forgotten, but buried. But in the moment it seizes him and Taako thinks, if it’s for Magnus. If it’s for Magnus you have to do it right.

Alone in a tavern below an inn, a bright orange sunset pouring through the dusty windows. Bags at his feet full of fruits and clothes and new flatware and any damn amenity he pleases. That’s what life is, years later. Whatever he damn well pleases. Spending money on whatever he needs, or wants, and wanting for very little. 

And someone says a name he hasn’t thought about in years.

“But Governor Callen, why rebuild the place when you can easily seize control of the three, four other nearby towns that have sprung up around it? I assume that is where the remaining residents dispersed.”

Taako looks up from his flagon. A man shifts in his seat at the table, leaning forward conspiratorially. A head full of curly, golden hair. High cheekbones and a sharp, drawn smile, showing no teeth.

“It is much easier to control a population if you redirect them back into one place. Encourage trade again. Control the input and output.”

“People won’t live in Raven’s Roost anymore,” a different man across from him protests. Greying, with a furrowed brow and fidgeting, wringing hands folding and unfolding on the table between them. “They think the place is cursed.”

_ Raven’s Roost _ . Taako goes lightheaded with an emotion he can’t place. Fear, perhaps. And excitement. A deep, foreboding dread. An immense, anxious pleasure. Governor Callen has a childlike face and Taako realizes, with an immense and all-encompassing clarity, he’s going to see that face dead.

Beside Callen, two large men sit at attention. Guards, Taako thinks. Or something of the sort.

“They’ll live wherever they can if we restrict amenities,” the man he presumes must be Callen retorts. “And once collected, they can be controlled. I want stricter trade. I want to funnel money where I see fit. Where  _ you _ see fit.”

Across from him, the older man and woman exchange glances. A long and weighty pause where Callen runs his finger, adorned with golden rings, over the rim of his glass. Over and over, delicate and purposeful, like he could wear it down into dust.

“We cannot offer you money. We don’t -- not after the war. Our stronghold has nothing.”

“I don’t need money. I need your men.”

Another pause. A nod.

“Men we have,” the woman acquiesces. “An army. We have that.”

“And soon you’ll be able to buy back anything else you please,” Callen replies, looking pleased. “I’ll see your coffers filled. All I need is control.”

Taako remembers Magnus, once, in his own home. Stumbling backwards into a seat at his kitchen table.

“Sorry, sorry,” he panted. “I feel. I dunno. Can someone open a window or something?”

Pale and clammy with his head in his hands. Taako traced Magnus’ steps back towards a small, open chest. Wooden and intricately carved, but seemingly not in Magnus’ distinctive style. Behind him, Magnus still talking to Merle.

“I got sorta. I dunno. Like when you’re sick to your stomach but in my  _ head _ . That sounds stupid.”

“Nah, it ain’t stupid,” Merle drawled. “Breathe in that fresh air, buddy. It’ll set you right.”

Inside the chest, a letter. Taako turned purposefully away, disguising it from the men behind him.

_ For the hero of Raven’s Roost. _

_ Never in my life did I think we’d see Governor Callen overturned. What you’ve given us is beyond repayment, but let me do my best. _

_ A piece of woodwork for the apprentice who has surpassed my skill, and the son who has surpassed my wildest expectations. I cannot wait to see you wed. _

And a signature from a man’s name Taako only vaguely recognizes. Magnus laughed a little, in the distance. 

“What was I even doing,” he mused, wiping at his brow. And Taako folded up the letter and pocketed it away where it sat, burning a hole in his chest against his breast pocket. 

With the meeting seemingly adjourned, Callen through an ale or three and alone with his guards, Taako stands and snakes through the busy tables. 

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Taako croons, leaning his hip into the corner of their table. He tugs at his shirt collar like he’s pricked with heat and blinks, heavily. Open. Close. Callen tips from surprised to vaguely intrigued in a moment. “But you’re. I mean. You’re who I  _ think _ you are, right?”

Beside Callen, a guard snaps upright and puts his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Stop, stop,” Callen orders, almost petulantly. “Can you both find someplace else to go?”

Taako laughs. It’s a good and practiced laugh, one that sounds nothing at all like what he does when he finds something genuinely funny. But like a false signature it does the trick in a pinch, and Taako hasn’t had to turn on this particular sort of charm in a long time, but it is almost even easier than he’d recalled. It’d never been his looks, really. Sacrificed or no. Taako has always been an immensely skilled performer, and this is his oldest and most reliable act.

“Wanna spend a little money on an admirer,” Taako asks, and Callen smiles his assent.

Callen folds his hands under his chin and raises his eyebrow.

“You don’t admire me. You have no idea who I am.”

But it sounds delighted. Intrigued.

“Fine,” Taako shrugs. “You got me. But I admire your money and your taste in ale, plus I’m  _ massively _ bored and the sun isn’t even down yet.”

“Governor,” the man beside him begins. Wordlessly, Callen shoos both armed guards away, and Taako sinks into the chair opposite.

“Cheers,” Taako says, and knocks back the remainder of Callen’s drink. It’s his turn to laugh this time.

He’d said not to say a word to Callen. Kill on sight. But that was Magnus’ fantasy. A world where justice is quickly and swiftly served. Without question. Without pretense. Taako wonders if Magnus will feel something. Like some indeterminable weight has been lifted. When he can’t and won’t ever know, does he still? Will he still? Is there a way for him to know it has ended?

Magnus’ mind is a splintered place, is the thing. All the times Magnus has stopped mid-sentence and threaded fingers into his hair, pulling lightly, almost scoldingly, some word fizzling out on the tip of his tongue. The time Magnus, late, late into the evening rasped, “I don’t know, I don’t know. Taako. What happened to Julia? Someone must’ve. I mean. The whole city. Someone had to have -- ” and Taako, fearful and caught, spoke the command word for  _ sleep _ into his palm and flicked it at Magnus’ heaving shoulders. Watched him fall back, silent and unmoving, against the pillows of Taako’s couch. Prayed he’d wake up with some different thought at the forefront of his mind. 

He follows Callen upstairs, into a room he’s rented. Taako notes the way his guards linger at the end of the hallway when he closes the door behind them. He supposes he won’t be exiting back down the stairs. Fine. Someone will pocket the worthwhile stuff out of his shopping bags and no one will be any the wiser.

“So what’s that you said about repayment,” Callen lilts with one hand in his fine hair, almost silver in the moonlight through the window.

Taako’s hand settles on the hilt of a dagger. A small thing, not meant for intimidation. But it’ll do the trick. He’ll do it without magic. Magnus would’ve, if this were him. Which it would never be - alone and deceitful in the top room of some inn. Taako steps close. Closer. He can smell ale on Callen’s breath. His eyes are so clear and so youthful. So untroubled by everything Taako knows he’s seen. Knows he’s wrought.

“This is for Julia,” Taako says, his voice cracking like a dry twig. Not like a hero at all. Not like what Magnus must’ve spun in his many years of fitful reverie. But he jams the small dagger into Callen’s chest, hard and unflinching, and then keeps pushing, deeper, deeper, and he thinks of Magnus’ hands around the hilt of an axe, and how quick it would be if he were here. How easy, and how earned.

Callen gasps a strangulated, furious sound as he falls to the ground. Before he can scream, Taako lifts his free hand and casts a silencing spell on the room. Callen’s mouth moves and gapes and contorts and nothing comes out. Is this. Is this what Magnus imagined. When he dared to imagine it.

Taako places one foot on Callen’s chest and uses that leverage to yank the dagger from between his ribs. Maybe he’s screaming. Taako doesn’t look at his face. The carpet beneath his feet turns from beige to red.

Taako kicks open the window. Callen’s chest rises and falls, erratic and shallow, and then not at all. Another spell and he’s leaping, falling. Safely and quietly and then quickly gone.

\-----

“Taako,” Magnus yelps, as he shoulders Magnus’ front door open, stumbling in gracelessly. A chisel and a block of wood tumble out of his hands onto his kitchen table with a hollow sounding clatter. “You - what’re you doing here?”

Taako doesn’t have an answer for that yet, save for I needed to see you, I needed to tell you something I can’t tell you.

“Kravitz was worried. He called me like, three times. Where were you?”

Taako remembers there’s a bloodied dagger in his belt. He pulls his cape closed over his shoulders and strides forward.

“Mags,” he insists, unsure of where this sentence is going. “Magnus.”

“Yeah?” Magnus replies urgently. He swallows. “Taako, you’re kinda scaring me.”

Taako places his hand on Magnus’ forehead. Magnus frowns.

“Taako?”

“Kiddo, you…” Taako interrupts. His voice sounds off-kilter, like someone had pieced a woodwind instrument back together all wrong. Magnus looks upset. He wants so badly for him to feel the relief he deserves. So many years and so much trouble and Callen’s nothing more than a dead body in a city inn, and Magnus doesn’t know. Magnus doesn’t  _ know _ .

“Gods.  _ Mags _ ,” he breathes again. “I hope you. Oh. Buddy. I hope you sleep so well tonight. I think you’re gonna.”

“What,” Magnus presses, less a question than a demand. He begins to squirm in his chair, but Taako cages his face in his hands. Brushes two absent thumbs over Magnus’ temples. The greying hair there. The small scar usually obscured by his messy sideburns.

“I think you’ll feel it,” Taako says. “I think you’re gonna rest easy.”

Magnus is very still. Eerily so. Like some part of him is straining to agree, to reach out and confirm. Or maybe that’s what he wants to believe, Taako thinks self-scoldingly. Maybe that would make it easier to stomach.

“I’m -- ” Magnus stutters. “Geez. Are you okay?”

Taako nods.

“Sorry for busting in.”

“That’s okay, you always do,” Magnus answers, with a lopsided smirk.

“Don’t blame me for wanting to see this dumb mug of yours,” Taako needles as he pulls away. “Sometimes I just wanna make sure you’re still here.”

Magnus laughs and gives a mocking little salute.

“Sure am,” he says, amenably. “Same as always.”

“Goodnight, bub,” Taako tosses over his shoulder as he heads for the door, “I’ll let Krav know I’m on the way.”

It’s Merle he calls first, though. And he says, I did it. I did it, in some inn up north. He was there, and his guards. They must’ve found him by now. Merle. I did it. I didn’t use magic.

“It’s what Magnus would’ve done,” Merle grunts. “Do ya feel any lighter for it?”

“Yeah,” Taako lies. A light is extinguished in Magnus’ bedroom window, which Taako can see from the road, where he has been standing for longer than he can fully recall.

“Yeah,” Taako says again, a little more firmly. He turns from the house. “Goodnight, Merle. Sleep easy.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

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